Anna Motz at Harvard Book Store

Harvard Book Store welcomes forensic psychologist, and psychotherapist ANNA MOTZ for a discussion of her new book If Love Could Kill: The Myths and Truths of Women Who Commit Violence. She will be joined in conversation by artist MAGGIE FISHMAN—artist, anthropologist, and educator.

About If Love Could Kill

Women can be murderers and child abusers. They can commit acts of extreme and sadistic brutality. And those who do, are outcasts from society and from womanhood itself. They are seen as monsters and angels of death: and must be kept at a safe distance.

Anna Motz is a renowned clinical and forensic psychologist in London and New York. Writing with candor, compassion, and a clear-eyed perspective, she explores in depth the shockingly underexamined psychological underpinnings of female violence. Far from the heartless and inhuman monsters we might believe them to be, these women are often victims of a culture of violence and emotional trauma.

Already hailed as a landmark, Motz's daring book, bursting with humanity, makes clear that women’s violence is more widespread than most realize, that these acts of violence expose deeply held, centuries-old beliefs about women and their value, and that these acts demand to be taken more seriously as a distinctive societal taboo that can—and must—be brought into the light.

Praise for If Love Could Kill

“Extraordinary . . . A visceral assault on the senses and rebuts almost everything that we have come to believe about women who kill and commit the most appalling of violent crimes.” —David Wilson, author of My Life with Murderers

“A powerful read, which is moving in its compassion and hopeful in its message that it is possible to break the connection between trauma and violence.” —Gwen Adshead, author of The Devil You Know

Mask Policy

Masks are encouraged but not required for this event.